SAN FRANCISCO -- Samsara, the leader in Internet-connected sensor systems, today announced $40 million in Series C financing led by General Catalyst, with participation from existing investor Andreessen Horowitz and Samsara’s founders. The round valued Samsara at over $530 million as the company’s revenues grow in excess of 250% annually.

Capital raised on explosive growth in commercial fleet market

The financing comes as Samsara, which makes Internet-connected sensor systems for industrial and transportation applications, has emerged as a next-generation leader in the $8 billion vehicle telematics market. It has established a broad customer base in transportation, food and beverage, energy, and field services, and is rapidly gaining share with faster-than-market sales growth.

Samsara’s complete hardware-software platform combines data from sensors, GPS, cameras, and mobile apps in an integrated, cloud-based solution. Samsara’s technology drives operational gains ranging from safety and regulatory compliance to lower operating cost and increased customer satisfaction. Samsara’s growing list of enterprise-scale deployments include long haul trucking companies, Fortune 500 food producers, passenger transit operators, local governments, and public utilities.

With this new round, Samsara is now well-capitalized to accelerate growth and fuel long-term R&D investments. By reinvesting revenues from product sales, the company had over two-thirds of its Series A and Series B financing remaining on hand upon raising this round. The new financing brings the company’s total capital raised to $80 million, fueling Samsara’s accelerating growth – the 100-person company plans to double headcount to 200 by year’s end – and enabling long-term investments in research and development.

“Thanks to our faster-than-market sales growth, we didn’t need additional outside funding for day to day operations,” said Sanjit Biswas, Samara’s co-founder and CEO. “But we believe that Samsara’s approach to IoT can have a broad impact across large markets. We’ve already seen the technology benefit customers ranging from vehicle fleet operators to water utilities to energy producers. This new financing lets us invest in long-term technology development to explore new applications for our platform.”

Building on a history of innovation Samsara was founded by Biswas and CTO John Bicket, who together previously founded and led Meraki, the cloud networking technology leader that was acquired by Cisco Systems for $1.2 billion. Samsara had raised $40 million in two earlier rounds led by Andreessen Horowitz.

“The traction and acceleration of growth that Samsara has seen are impressive but not at all surprising. The team is successfully replicating the playbook they developed at Meraki in an even bigger market," said Hemant Taneja, Managing Director at General Catalyst. "Their ambitious vision of the 'industrial internet' is already delivering significant value to the industrial businesses that power our economy and they're just getting started. We're incredibly happy to be on board.” 

Taneja joins Marc Andreessen, founding partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Sanjit Biswas, and John Bicket on Samsara’s board of directors.

About General Catalyst

General Catalyst is a venture capital firm that makes early-stage and transformational investments. The firm backs exceptional entrepreneurs who are building innovative technology companies and market leading businesses, including Airbnb, BigCommerce, ClassPass, Datalogix, Datto, Demandware, Gusto, The Honest Company, HubSpot, KAYAK, Oscar, Snap, Stripe, and Warby Parker. The General Catalyst partnership leverages its broad experience to help founders build market-leading businesses. General Catalyst has offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York City, and Cambridge, MA.